HORIZON SCANNING IN ARMENIA, EGYPT AND GEORGIA

SPOTTING THE FUTURE

Alberto Cottica, Inga Popovaite, Noemi Salantiu
30 July 2014

Photo: Medhin Paolos

PA R T O N E

D ATA A N D F I N D I N G S

PURPOSE

Spot The Future (STF) is a foresight

exercise on Armenia, Egypt and Georgia.

It engages social innovators, hackers,
activists and other would-be changemakers,
mostly from the fringes of the economy and
society, based on the premise that societal
novelty starts at the edge.

Its objective is to gain insight about near-

future dynamics impacting post-2015

Development Goals, building on the
engagement of over 3 million people in the
UNDG World We Want consultations.

M E T H O D S & D ATA

Edgeryders and UNDP collected and

analyzed ethnographic data by fostering

an online conversation in March-June 2014.
It built upon the World We Want
consultation processes.

The dataset consists of 161 posts and 782

comments from 128 individuals from 22

countries. We targeted social innovators,
activists, changemakers.

Preliminary results were validated during a

focus group discussion that took place in

late June 2014, involving 8 participants.

MASSIVE ONLINE
ETHNOGRAPHY
Ethnographic coding was applied to 161

posts and 782 comments on the

Edgeryders platform. Coding is a standard
ethnographic technique. It consists of
reading all contributions and assigning
relevant keywords to snippets of texts.
Keywords become then second-order data,

and can be analysed in various ways.

243 tags in 6 categories were identified

as recurring all along the STF

conversation.

HOW IS IT DONE?

Seed a conversation through high-quality

content that is relevant to the theme. Start with

people at the edge and traverse the social
graph through social media.
Grow your conversation by community

management, respectful interaction and

connecting people to each other.
Harvest it by ethnographic software, built into

the Edgeryders platform.

People select themselves to participate. This

ensures enthusiasm and eliminates researcher

selection bias (the usual suspects effect).

NOT THE USUAL

SUSPECTS
Participants in STF were mostly 21-30

years old; socially active; and

community-oriented.

Diverse professional identities:

architects, designers, researchers,

documentary film makers, engineers,
yoga instructors

Not afraid to step in and take initiatives.

Most were not usual suspects

UNDP works with.

T H E PA R T I C I PA N T S P R O J E C T S A N D T H E I R K E Y W O R D S B Y C O U N T R Y

COMMITTED TO ACTION
E N V I R O N M E N T,
A LT E R N AT I V E E C O N O M Y,
INCLUSION,
E M P O W E R M E N T,
I N F O R M A L E D U C AT I O N

E N V I R O N M E N T, U R B A N
PLANNING, GENDER
I S S U E S , E D U C AT I O N ,
COMMUNITY
D E V E L O P M E N T,
S O L I D A R I T Y, M E D I A

E N V I R O N M E N T, U R B A N
PLANNING, GENDER
I S S U E S , I C T, R O A D
S A F E T Y, S O L I D A R I T Y,
MEDIA

EXAMPLE PROJECTS:
C O M M U N I T Y- B U I LT R I N G
ROAD RAMPS
The citizens of the Al-Mutamidiya community in

Cairo built four ramps to access the ring road

from their neighborhood.

Formally illegal, they were built to government

specifications. Their cost is estimated at 25% of

what the government would have spent to do
the same work.

Construction happened at the time of the

revolution, when the security apparatus was

busy in Tahrir Square. The post-revolution
government decided to accept the ramps as a
citizen-funded improvement and built a police
station nearby.

T H E P E O P L E O F A L - M U TA M I D I YA N E E D E D T O
BUILD THIS EXIT FROM A LONG TIME AGO AND
WHEN THE CHANCE OPENED FOR
CONSTRUCTING IT THEY TOOK THE CHANCE
DURING THE TEMPORARY COLLAPSE OF LOCAL
AUTHORITIES.

EXAMPLE PROJECTS:
CARPOOLING IN
ARMENIA
A young woman created a Facebook group

(Carpool ) to coordinate on
sharing rides. This happened in July 2013, in
response to an increase of public transport
prices in Yerevan.
A massive response from society drove the

city authorities to reverse the price increase

but the level of trust in strangers had
increased for good.
Carpooling Armenia is now internationalizing.

In the course of STF a collaboration between

it and an Egyptian entrepreneur was started.

T H E M O S T A M A Z I N G W A S T H AT I N 2 D AY S
M O R E T H A N 6 0 0 0 P E O P L E W E R E I N V O LV E D I N
T H E I N I T I AT I V E . I T W A S L I K E A V I R U S . N E A R LY
N O O N E W A N T E D T O U S E P U B L I C T R A N S P O R T,
BECAUSE THERE WAS BETTER OPTION. ALL OUR
S O C I E T Y W A S I N V O LV E D "

EXAMPLE PROJECTS:
GIRLS WHO CODE IN
TBILISI
JumpStart Georgia noticed that

participation to hackathons in Georgia is

overwhelmingly male.
It responded by providing office space

and encouraging their staff to train young

female professionals on writing code.
IT specialists work directly with a group of

around 15 women aged 22-35. The

women are mostly journalists and
activists. They learn to code in the
programming language Ruby.

Photo: Jumpstart Georgia

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING [] IS ALSO AN

ESSENTIAL SKILL FOR IDEALISTS IN COUNTRIES
W H E R E O P E N D ATA A R E S T I L L S C A R C E , A N D
W H E R E I N F O R M AT I O N I S E S S E N T I A L I F O N E I S
T O U N D E R S TA N D S O C I E T Y A N D W O R K T O M A K E
IT BETTER.

SYSTEMIC
CHALLENGES
The challenges mentioned in the data

are mostly consistent with MyWorld

2015 survey: environment, education,
poverty, migration, un- or
underemployment, lack of transparency
and corruption in institutions

MyWorld2015
top 5 choices in
the 3 countries

Almost no mention of protection from

crime and violence in STF.

Greater emphasis on urban planning

and environmental issues than in

MyWorld 2015.

Spot The Future

TOP-DOWN
APPROACHES
In their everyday work, changemakers are

challenged by bureaucracy, vertical

hierarchical systems, top-down approaches.

Problematic relationships with

governmental institutions appear in all

three countries.

Authorities and donors mistrust grassroots,

experimental initiatives.

The traditional grant proposal-grant-

project-report is seen as leading to blind

fund chasing and no outcome.

ALL OUR REQUESTS FOR MEETINGS AND

FURTHER ACTION WERE IGNORED. IT'S TRUE,
W E N E V E R I N I T I AT E D A P U B L I C P R O T E S T O R A
P E T I T I O N R E G A R D I N G T H E I S S U E , B U T T H AT ' S
E X A C T LY W H AT ' S M O S T F R U S T R AT I N G A B O U T
C O M M U N I C AT I O N , A S A N O R G A N I Z AT I O N O U R
EFFORTS ALONE ARE NEVER ENOUGH.

DEALING WITH TOPDOWN APPROACHES

Support each other, sharing human and

other resources.

Lobby for more flexible and alternative

sources of funding or try crowdfunding

(in Egypt it plugs into religious institutions
like zakaa and sadaka).

Break down projects in small chunks and

target small, independent donors.

Get training in project management also

informally, by simply sharing experiences.

C O L L A B O R AT I O N
IS HARD

Individuals and organisations

trying to affect change perceive

each other as competitors.

Duplication of effort is a constant

threat.

W H AT I F I N D L A C K I N G I S P E O P L E TA L K I N G
WITH EACH OTHER, NOT JUST ABOUT EACH
OTHER.

C O L L A B O R AT I O N
I S T H E W AY T O G O
Cooperation is by far the tag

recurring most often.

Appreciation was repeatedly

expressed for the neutral ground

provided by STF workshops.

Bi-weekly meetings started among a

group of Georgian participants.

There is a hunger for peer-to-peer

collaboration.

FINDING
M O T I V AT I O N
Changemakers and activists perceive

themselves and their peers as indifferent

and skeptical. They report struggling to
motivate themselves and others.

This is explained by perceived

powerlessness (I cant change anything)

and social mistrust (people are too selfish/
conservative).

However, most participants are able to

motivate themselves into action. Their

main motivations are altruism and necessity.

L E T ' S B U I L D A P L AT F O R M T O D O C U M E N T T H AT
I N P U T I N A P U B L I C S PA C E A N D M O N I T O R T H E
G R E E N S PA C E T H AT E X I S T S ! I T I S O U R C I T Y.
L E T ' S TA K E B A C K O W N E R S H I P O F I T !

PA R T T W O

VECTORS OF CHANGE

N E W P L AY E R S I N
THE GAME
Young changemakers are on the move to

achieve positive change. Most of them are

newcomers and many fly below the radar of
institutions. They are a new agent for change and
can be expected to have an impact.

While broadly consistent with post-2015

development goals, their agenda has its own

priorities, such as the management of public
spaces. We expect to see them rise in the political
agenda.

Policy implications: give these newcomers space

to take ownership of the issues they care about;

refocus tried-and-true approaches towards issues
that they dont.

C O O P E R AT I O N
AND SWARMING
Peer-to-peer cooperation is perceived as the

main for their initiatives to grow. They dont

try to scale by recruitment; rather they share
resources, mobilising each other on the issues
they care about.

We expect to see swarming behaviour:

almost instant redeployment of manpower and

other resources (such as social media traction)
from issue to issue, from campaign to
campaign. This can be very effective.

Policy implications: provide safe spaces for

changemakers to learn to cooperate, also

internationally. Avoid zero-sum game setups.

I N T E R FA C I N G W I T H
INSTITUTIONS
The traditional grant cycle model is perceived

as distorsive and obsolete. Changemakers

struggle to fit innovative activities within the frame
of hierarchical relationships and administrationoriented approaches.

Policy implications (mitigation): provide training

on grant application writing, project

management and evaluation. This should allow
some initiatives to fit in without losing
coherence.

Policy implications (radical): test and deploy

new forms to support grassroot, innovative

initiatives. Ask for help in designing them. We
know its hard!

D E M O C R AT I C
TECHNOLOGIES
In their struggle for effective action, young

changemakers use a mix of DIY approaches,

open source software and open data. Geodata
in particular are seen as a tool to convey
information and support advocacy on issues from
carpooling to harassment.

We expect to see a fast spread of democratic

technologies such as open source software, open

hardware, DIY, cheap drones.

Policy implications: support and promote open

data policies; support and promote all

democratic technologies. Try to refrain from
hyper-regulating them, or the business models that
they enable (eg. Uber-like businesses).

C O N TA C T

Edgeryders LBG
Find out more at http://
company.edgeryders.eu
Or write to alberto@edgeryders.eu
Photo credits: Leonid Mujiri (unless
otherwise indicated)
This work is property of UNDP and licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.